Gangapuram inscription of Vikramaditya VI, 1091

The record

The inscription is numbered Mn. 45 in P. Sreenivasachar’s collection.¹ It is one of eleven Kannada records from Gangapuram in the Mahbubnagar district.¹ P. B. Desai summarised them in the Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961).¹

The record places itself in the reign of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya VI “from Kalyanapura”.¹ It is dated in Chalukya-Vikrama year 16, the cyclic year Prajapati, at the winter solstice (uttarayana-sankranti).¹ Desai equated this date with 25 December 1091.¹

It records a gift of land as a jyotirvritti, an endowment for astrology.¹ The gift went to Aditya Bhattopadhyaya and Viddaya Bhatta, who were both well versed in astrology.¹ It was made by the royal preceptor (rajaguru) Sakalaprakasa Bhattaraka, for the prosperity of the emperor.¹ The Kannada text, printed in the second part of the volume, runs to nineteen lines.²

In 1956 P. Sreenivasachar’s Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, Part III, reproduced an estampage (ink copy) as Plate 33.³ Its caption was “Gangapuram inscription of Tribhuvanamalla”, but the publication of its text was put off.³ The plate shows a slab of nineteen lines.² Its opening and line count agree with the text of this record.² They agree with none of the other dated Gangapuram records of Vikramaditya VI, which have 23, 24 and 31 lines.²

The Gangapuram records

The other Gangapuram records summarised by Desai include these:⁴¹⁵⁶

• gifts of toll income by merchants and their guilds to the gods Salesvara (1116), Sagaresvara and Kesava (1141, 1148)⁴¹⁵⁶
• a gift of toll income by merchants to a god whose name Desai read with doubt as Pojjisvara (1143)⁴¹⁵⁶
• a gift by a great minister to the god Bhimesvara (1097 and 1117)⁴¹⁵⁶
• an undated record, perhaps of Somesvara I’s time, of the building of a tank and of a shrine of Bhimesvara⁴¹⁵⁶

A record of 1134 names a councillor of Tailapadeva and the toll officer of the Kandur country.⁵⁶

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took Gangapuram (Gangapura) to be the capital of the prince Kumara Tailapa.⁷ He cited the records of Jagadekamalla II there, of 1141 and 1143.⁷ In his view, they show that the king had won back the Kandur country from the prince.⁷

Footnotes

1. Desai, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), p. 8, Nos. 18–21 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased except for the short phrase quoted. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

2. P. Sreenivasachar, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), Part II, Kannada texts, pp. 32–33, Mn. 45 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)); compared by this site with the plate cited below. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts of Andhra Pradesh, Part III (1956), list of plates and Plate 33 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

4. P. B. Desai, introduction to P. Sreenivasachar, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series 3, 1961), p. 7, No. 17 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Desai, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), p. 9, Nos. 21–24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Desai, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), p. 10, Nos. 24–26 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 84. ↩ ↩² ↩³